5-6. Thank God. I was at number seven.

“I can smell it already,” a friendly voice drifted out room 7, serving as a comforting beacon of light in a dark sea of disturbing waves.

“Frontier Pizza,” I announced before stepping into the doorway, the tower of pizzas stacked up in front of my face.

“Come on in,” I followed the voice into a room which looked like a mix between a hospital room and a dorm room. “I thought it was Cowboy Pizza though?”

I followed the voice to the face of a rosy, elderly man. He smiled at me from behind a short gray beard, thick Buddy Holly glasses which would have made him look like a hipster were he young and short gray hair parted to the side. He looked a lot like the old man from the movie Up, but with a beard and without any touch of the crotchety nature so many old men succumb too.

I walked the pizzas over to a small desk next to the bed which the old man sat on the foot of.

“Uhhh, our signature pizza is the cowboy pizza, but we have been called Frontier Pizza for as long as I can remember. But, I just started working there like a month ago, so who knows?”

“Ah a green horn, eh?” The old man retorted with glee.

“Sure,” I agreed even though I didn’t know what that meant.

The old man gave the pizza boxes a long, heavy stare. I noticed the awful woman from the front desk was standing in the doorway, giving me a similar stare.

“You aren’t allowed to order food delivered here on any day other than Saturday George,” the woman scolded him, but he seemed to pay it no mind.

“Ah hell, it is Saturday,” George said with his eyes closed behind his glasses.

“It’s Tuesday, George. You know that.”

George shakes his head, messing up his neat hair just a touch. He looked up at me and gave a wink of a wrinkled eye.

“Well, how much do I owe you for the Tuesday special?” George asked while he eyes scanned my chest for a name upon my company shirt. “Tom-b-ston-e?”

George was trying to sound out the name printed on my shirt in the place a simple name would usually be but instead read Tombstone.

“Is that Tom-b-ston-e? Is that Filipino? Or is that Tom B. Stone? As in your full name?”

I gave a little laugh which I hoped didn’t offend.

“Actually it’s Tombstone. The company prints whatever your favorite Western movie is on your shirt instead of your name, I don’t know why. I guess they think it’s cute”

“Is Tombstone your favorite Western? I’ve never actually seen it. I prefer Shane myself”

“That’s enough George,” the awful woman’s voice cut through the saccharine sweet drawel of George.”What’s the price young man?”

“Seventy-nine, eighty-six,” I announced, hoping George actually had that much money.

“But, do you like the film, Tombstone, though?” George asked while he dug deep into his trouser pocket.

I chuckled.

“I’ve never actually seen it, or any other Western. They just gave me this shirt. It belonged to the guy I replaced.”

My answer was interrupted by George handing me what appeared to be a collection of bills wrapped in a hundred.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” I said, starting to walk to the doorway as fast as I could, feeling the awful woman’s eyes burning into me.

I counted the money as soon as I got back into my car.

100. 20. 10. 5 and a few crumpled ones. Whoa.

I was so distracted by the green shine of the money, I didn’t notice the note tucked into the wad of bills until it fell into my lap.

I picked up the little scrap of paper, could barely read the blue, handwritten note.

“You have to help me. This place is a death trap. No one believes me. Something is very wrong here. Please call me. I can explain. 218-360-3116.
Kindly, George”